


Ancient One

by Knill



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knill/pseuds/Knill
Summary: While waiting for their ride home to be fixed, Daniel and Jack get accidentally transported to an old laboratory. They soon find themselves face to face with the reason the place looks so devoid of life.
Kudos: 2
Collections: Stargate Winter Fic Exchange 2020-21





	Ancient One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heath_E](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heath_E/gifts).



> Written for the 2020/21 Stargate Winter Fic exchange.  
> Set in the first half of season 7.

Daniel woke up with a pounding pain in his right arm. He blinked the haze of unconsciousness and desperately tried to remember if he’s in any danger at all and if he should be moving. He took in his surroundings and registered Teal’c and Sam having their backs on him, fiddling with something in front of an Al’kesh window. Al’kesh? Oh right.

He grunted and tried to get up into a sitting position. “Morning, sunshine.” Jack. 

“Hey,” Daniel said, his voice sounding a little raspy. “What’s up?” 

“Well,” Jack started and nodded in Sam’s and Teal’c’s direction. “We got attacked by some Death Gliders, you took a nap.”

Daniel scratched his head. “We were on our way to return the Al’kesh.” he said, still a little fuzzy, but events of the last few hours, were slowly coming back to him. The briefing with the Tok’ra, the rescue mission…

“Bingo,” Jack sang and handed Daniel a canteen with water, which he gladly accepted. “Hope they didn’t expect it to be in one peace.” the colonel murmured.

“Is Zanuf alright?” Daniel asked hopefully.

Jack made a face. “Yep. Snoring it off in the holding cell.” Daniel sighed in relief. So the mission was a success after all. They rescued the Tok’ra member, though he was pretty sure they’ll miss their deadline. He glanced up to see what his teammates were doing and saw them opening the panel with crystals. Blackened. Yeah, definitely not gonna meet the deadline.

“How are we doing?” Jack asked, while helping Daniel to his feet. 

“Well, sir we’re not getting out of here, unless we can find a way to replace these.” Sam held out her arm with the cracked crystals on her palm. 

“Is there a way to contact the Tok’ra?” 

“Until Zanuf wakes up, there isn’t.”

“Is she okay?” Daniel asked, stretching his abused arm. It wasn’t broken, he was sure, just sore. There’s most likely gonna be one hell of a bruise. 

“She hit her head when we… um, landed.” Sam explained. 

“The symbiote will heal her injuries in a matter of hours.” Teal’c added.

“So what do we do?” Daniel asked. “Are we gonna look for the stargate?”

“As far as we know, it isn’t anywhere near us,” Sam said. “It’s possible this planet doesn’t even have one.”

“Could the crystals from the Death Gliders work?” Jack suggested and Sam nodded.

“That’s what we were thinking,” Sam tapped on the computer screen and a radar hologram popped out. “There’s a Glider approximately two miles northeast from our position and another one to the south.”

“10 miles.” Daniel whistled. “How’d it get so far if we were the target?” 

“Crappy pilot?” Jack shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Alright, so let’s check out the first one, Teal’c, Carter?”

“Yes sir.” Sam said and started to gear up along with Teal’c.

They weren’t gone for even half an hour, when Daniel apparently has had enough of sitting.  
“Where are you going?” Jack snapped, when he saw the archaeologist collecting his jacket from where it lay crumpled on the ground. 

“Fresh air.” he muttered and went out. Jack cursed and went after him.

“You may have a concussion, you know?” he said. 

“Yeah well, I feel fine.” Daniel said and started walking in a straight line, as though he actually knew where he was going.

“Daniel,” he grabbed the younger man’s shoulder and was about to start an argument about going back, when he noticed his friend’s blank expression. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…” Daniel shook his head. “I get this… huge deja vu from this place.” he said. 

Jack looked around. This area hardly had enough trees for it to be their regular deja vu planet. “Look, we can’t just leave the Al’kesh unguarded, or Zanuf for that matter.”

Daniel’s shoulders twitched and then he turned on his heels. “You’re right, I don’t know what got into me.” 

The duo slowly started to retrace their steps, when Daniel froze again. “I’ve been here before.” he voiced.

“What- hey!” Jack staggered when the archaeologist brushed past him, running. “Damn it, Daniel!” 

Matter of fact was that Daniel was hardly even paying attention to Jack. There was something important, somewhere around here. He couldn’t understand what it was that was leading his steps, but he knew for certain that it was the right way. Something was tugging at his memories. 

Finally he came to a stop, Jack nearly bumping into him. He growled, grabbing his friend by the uniform. “The hell are you doing?”

“Look!” Daniel broke free of Jack’s grasp and pointed at the circular rings, half covered by sand properties of the alien dirt. 

“Well I’ll be damned.” Jack huffed and crouched down. 

“Aren’t rings usually near a stargate?” Daniel wondered out loud and searched for anything in the desert that would resemble it. “Or some Goa’uld fortress or something.”

“Weird,” Jack said and radioed Sam. “Daniel found a ring platform, the planet could be a Goa’uld one after all. Status?”

“We’re approaching the Death Glider, sir. No Goa’uld activity here.”

“Report every ten minutes.” Jack turned to Daniel, who was just about to step inside the platform. Then it lit up. Jack jumped inside attempting to push Daniel out. The rings were faster than the colonel. 

One moment they were there, and then they weren’t. When the light of the rings disappeared, they were left in complete darkness. “Jack?” Daniel asked the darkness.

“Yeah, I’m here. Damn it.” Daniel kept silent. Oh Jack’s so gonna kill him, when they get some light in here. Jack lit his p90 and shone it at the apologetic looking doctor. 

“In my defense, there was no way I could have known that we would… get… Jack what are those..?”

Jack spun around and the small light of his gun revealed a very dead looking person. And it wasn’t alone. There were corpses everywhere, corpses of all kinds, from skeletons to a rather recent looking Jaffa. With the sight came the smell. Daniel felt his stomach turn and covered his mouth with a small whimper.

He was used to seeing dead bodies, but this was too much for him and apparently even for Jack who’s breathing suddenly sped up. “Let’s get out of here?” Daniel offered weakly.

“Yeah, let’s do that.” They positioned themselves back to the ring platform, hoping it would activate by itself like the last time, but nothing happened. 

“Shit.” Daniel grunt out.

“Easy, Danny,” Jack patted his friend on the shoulder, trying to reassure him as well as himself. “Let’s uh…”

“Control panel.” Daniel offered. 

“Yeah come on, it has to be here somewhere.” 

Daniel had stuck behind Jack, since he had no flashlight with him and tried to avoid looking and smelling. He was sure he’s gonna throw up if they don’t get out of here fast. “Anything?” he asked, when they went through the whole small room.

Jack shook his head. “It might be in this corridor.” he waved his hand in the direction of a dark hallway they both tried not to think about. Instead of heading towards it however, Jack kneeled next to the dead Jaffa. “He’s still warm,” he whispered and looked for the possible cause of death. Pools of blood on either side of the alien and the deep gashes on his torso could have been it, but Jack would have expected the warrior to at least try and crawl out of the room, instead it seemed he just dropped here without any effort to get out of here. There was also a nasty bruise on his forehead. This could have been one of the Death Glider pilots.  
“Something killed him.” Jack said matter of factly. 

Daniel hugged himself and sighed. “I’m sorry, Jack, I-” he started, still not accustomed to his surroundings and with the idea of going deeper into whatever this place was, he was getting a choking feel of panic. 

“Not now, Daniel,” Jack shushed him, got up and took a step toward the dark corridor. “We can talk about this later. Try contacting the others.” 

“It’s been more than ten minutes, they must know by now that something’s wrong,” Daniel muttered mostly to himself. “They’re gonna come looking for us.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jack said and sighed in relief, when his flashlight revealed the control panel. “Got it.”

“Sam, this is Daniel, can you hear me?” said Daniel into the small radio and waited. Nothing. “Teal’c? Can anyone hear me?” 

Jack cursed and Daniel gave him a questioning face. Jack pointed at the panel.”It’s not working.”

“Sam and Teal’c aren’t responding either.” 

Suddenly, there was an inhuman sounding noise. Something in the corridor just breathed, it sounded like gasps of several people in pain, like an effort of a dying person to speak. The two teammates just froze, Jack raising his gun, Daniel feebly reaching for his knife. No one dared to make a noise. 

There it was again. The terrific sound was closer than before. Daniel felt his heart thunder alarms in his head. All his instincts were screaming “run” at him. But run where?

“Left, wall..” Jack said, apparently sharing his train of thoughts. They slowly pressed their backs to the cold smooth stone and Jack turned off the flashlight. Jack felt with his fingers for an opening to a different room. Anything that could help them hide from whatever that was. But the wall just kept going and so did they. 

Daniel tried to calm his head spinning gasps. Was this thing in the dark responsible for all the dead in the transportation room? 

Then they heard footsteps and growling breaths. Daniel dared to look towards it. Eyes. White glowing eyes, at least twenty of them. “I think it can see us.” Daniel whispered and the creature blinked. 

Jack suddenly jumped from where he was pressed against the wall and fired the p90 in the thing’s eyes. It howled in pain and started running towards the two members of SG-1. Thanks to Jack’s attack, they had a pretty good idea of the appearance of the monster. It had multiple limbs moving uncoordinated, touching the walls, floor, even ceiling, its multiple head’s were screaming, their eyes blind, but open wildly, their body mash of living matter.  
Daniel stood frozen, as Jack was firing and firing and the creature was getting closer and closer. Why was he still getting a feeling of familiarity? 

The monstrosity ran over Jack and then it’s many eyes turned on Daniel. It yelled unnaturally and then it’s many limbs were all over him. He finally snapped out of the shocked state and tried to break free, but the creature was gripping him so tight, he might as well just stayed frozen. The hold was getting more and more tight and he couldn’t help but scream out. 

“Daniel!” Jack tried to get up, but the creature just kicked out at him and the colonel was thrown to a wall, where he was held by one of the creature’s limbs. 

Daniel started to have trouble breathing. The heads were getting closer, their hungry grimacing mouths getting wider and he felt himself getting weaker and weaker. Suddenly, a memory flashed before his eyes. “No! Let me go!” he yelled out and broke his right arm free and stabbed the monster in one of its eyes with his knife. It screeched once more and then, as it was letting the archaeologist go, it knocked his arm, in which he was holding the knife to the side and he felt the blade enter his thigh.

Then there was silence. 

Daniel just lay on the ground paralyzed by fear and would’ve stayed there for a much longer time, if it wasn’t for Jack. “Daniel! Daniel, are you okay?” He took his friends shoulders and turned him over, cursing at the sight of the knife. “Jesus Christ what was that?” 

Daniel took a deep breath and let Jack help him sit up. “Amalgamation.” he said. 

“What?” Jack reached for his gun and shone light around to see if they were alone. 

“It’s… the uh…” Daniel still had trouble breathing. “We called it the Ancient One.” 

“Who “we”?” Jack frowned. 

“The ascended.” Daniel said simply. 

“What do they have to do with anything?” 

“I had a… uh, flashback I think. When it was choking me.” he said slowly, trying to comprehend the new memory from his time as an ascended being. God, the knife in his leg was distracting. 

“Hey, leave it!” Jack batted his hand away from the knife. “I don’t want you to bleed out.” 

“The Ancient One was an experiment,” Daniel continued instead. “Conducted by some of the original Ancients. There was apparently some kind of accident. Ten people died and they tried to help them ascend…” Daniel recalled the faces. “But something went wrong.”

“Yeah no kidding,” Jack said. “How do we kill it?” 

Daniel shook his head. “We can’t.” 

“What?” 

“From what I just remembered, I went here before, trying to… free it...Jack, they could... touch the ascended, if they could hurt us… um, them, what chance do we have?” Daniel pushed his palms on his eyes. “God, I killed us.” 

Jack took a hold of his friend’s arms and gave him something close to a smile. “We’re still here, Danny,” he said. Daniel felt tears slide down his cheeks. “We’re gonna pull through, okay? I don’t want to hear anything about giving up, okay?” 

Daniel just nodded and wiped at his eyes. 

“Okay, now, what did you say about you trying to free it?” 

Daniel cleared his throat. “Um, well, I basically wanted to help them ascend...” 

“Seriously?” 

“They are still human beings deep inside, Jack,” Daniel said. “I think I was actually getting through to them.”

“What happened?” Jack asked. 

“Well, um, this is where the memory gets kinda fuzzy. I think the others stopped me.” 

“Great. That’s just great,” Jack sighed. “Okay, let’s go.” 

“Go where?” Daniel asked, grunting as Jack helped him to his feet.

“There must be a way out. We can still breathe can’t we?” 

“Ventilation.” 

“Exactly, I don’t suppose you remember anything about the layout of this place?” Daniel shook his head, swimming in a haze of his new pains. Jack put his arm over Daniel’s shoulders and then they were walking.

It was dark, silent, smelly. They were crossing lots of dead bodies, bones… Daniel stopped caring about them a long time ago. It felt like they were walking for hours. If the Ancient One was following them, they were especially stealthy. 

“Daniel, look!” The archaeologist was tired, his injured leg no longer being of any support, and the new sets of bruises just made him feel like sleeping even more. Still he raised his head. 

“That’s light…” he said, not fully realizing what it meant. 

“Yeah, buddy, come on!” He hurried Daniel forward and sat him against something that looked like a table. “Hang on, let me see if I can get this open.” 

Daniel blinked at Jack, illuminated by natural light. It was warm and welcoming. He smiled. This could be a way out. Was that why Jack was so excited? 

He heard something and his grin disappeared. Voices? Sam and Teal'c! And something else. Breaths. Shallow, a lot of them, pained. 

He whipped his head around and saw them again. The Ancient One was standing right there, staring at him. It didn’t move. 

Daniel looked back at Jack, who was too occupied trying to remove some heavy looking blocks of rock and appeared to be talking to someone as well. Did Sam and Teal’c find them? 

He gazed back at the Ancient One. “Hello.” he said in ancient, feeling a little stupid. What if the reason he didn’t succeed helping the people was because they just couldn’t understand him after all? 

The amalgamation extended three of its arms towards him, not moving from their spot. Was it waving? “Do you need help?” he asked. Some of the heads slowly nodded. So they do understand. He tried to move himself without using his injured leg. The amalgamation lowered itself to the ground and slowly started approaching the archaeologist. Something tugged at his memory. “Are you hungry?” he blurted out and realized a second too late that he shouldn’t have. The Ancient One was on him in seconds, the heads snapping at him. “No wait, wait!” he yelled. Another mistake. 

“Daniel!” Jack opened fire right away. The amalgamation roared angrily and was about to leave the archaeologist, when Daniel grabbed one of it’s arms. “Listen to me!” He continued yelling in ancient and tried not to let go of the slippery limb. “I was here before, I wanted to help you! I couldn’t then, but there’s nothing stopping me now, just let me help!” 

“Y҉O҉U҉ ҉C҉A҉N҉'҉T҉ ҉H҉E҉L҉P҉ ҉U҉S҉!҉!҉!” The heads screamed in unison. Daniel barely understood that. And before he could let it sink in, he was grabbed once again and the Ancient One dragged him out of the room. 

Daniel couldn't think of anything else to say that would calm the creature. He tried to keep his thoughts intact as he was repeatedly lifted, when the amalgamation spread it's limbs around, touching the whole tunnel, running as before very chaotically, not caring if they slammed the panicky archeologist to the walls around. He considered taking a hold of the knife in his leg, but everytime he tried, the amalgamation shook him, as tough it knew exactly what he wanted to do. 

He long since gave up screaming for help, he didn't even know if Jack could keep track of the chaotic movement of the Ancient One. He didn't want him to look for him either. He would just get lost in this maze of a complex and the failed experiment would-

Would do what? It didn't eat the people in the transportation room or anything right? The Jaffa was just... dead. Not torn to pieces, neither were the other corpses. What was it that the Ancient One wanted to do?

Just before it grabbed him, what was it that triggered the agressive reaction? He asked if it was hungry... why did he asked that in the first place? Stupid ancient memo- 

His train of thoughts was interupted as he was once again slammed to a wall. It let him go this time. 

"Ancient..?" one of the heads asked him. It was a woman's voice, Daniel noticed. He tried to find it in the tangle of bodies. 

"No," he breathed out. "Tau'ri. I was among the ascended for about a year." 

"You can't..." another head said.

"...help..." another.

"...us."

"RULES."

"Forbade us."

Alright he already knew that. "How'd you stay alive this whole time?" Daniel asked, the hunger finally clicking in. The Ancient One must have been thousands of years old. So how did it survive?

"Souls." said a head nearest to Daniel, who flinched at it's hoarse voice. It kept making a disgusting clicking noise. 

"Oh," Daniel shuddered. Would something be truly able to take someone's soul? Like the sarcophagus? "Is that what you're um... going to do to me?" His eyes went wide, as the amalgamation suffled a little closer. 

"We are... fed." said the woman's voice again and Daniel finally spotted her. She was just as zombie-like like the rest. Her skin seemed as though it was melting, her eyes were sunken, bright white and what was left of her hair were just dangled by her face in greasy strands. 

"The Jaffa." Daniel said. 

The heads started mumbling something illegible and some angrily snaped their jaws at each other. "More years!" one of them barked and spit at the woman's face, to which she started shrieking so loud Daniel had to cover his ears. Before he realized what was happening, he was raised in the air and the heads started opening their mouths. Not sure if this was the way they stole someone's soul, but not willing to risk it, he yanked his knife out of his thigh and waved it threateningly at the amalgamation. "Let me down! You don't have to do this!" he yelled and firmly grabbed on one of the arms, when it tried to toss him again. 

Annoyed and as one they growled and loosened their grip on him and Daniel was dropped to the ground. He held back a cry of pain, when his weight landed on his injured leg. He couldn't stop the tears streak down his cheeks. "Look I was here before! You must remember, it wasn't such a long time ago!" he said quickly, when the Ancient One starting pacing around. 

"Help..." one head said angrily.

"Promised... the..." 

"...ascended one."

"Forbade..."

"...help." 

"The others stopped me?" he asked impatiently. 

"Yes." 

"Well they can't stop me now, so just tell me what... how can I help!"

"Can't."

"Be free." 

"The heart?" the woman's voice said. The other heads snarled at her angrily. "C҉A҉N҉'҉T҉" they said and tried to pounce the archeologist one last time. 

"Free the heart." Daniel recalled her voice. She said that once before. This same scenario happened before. Only Oma wasn't here to prevent him from doing the right thing. The Ancient One suffered for far too long.

He slid underneath the bodies. There, right in the middle of the bodies, was a beating organ. “I’m sorry.” he said. He raised his knife and thrust it right in the Ancient One’s heart.

Daniel hit the ground hard and clutched his bleeding leg. The amalgamation spasming next to him and then finally going still. Relieved, he closed his eyes. 

But even through the eyelids he couldn’t help but notice how the body of the amalgamation started to radiate with bright white light. He stared with satisfaction as a single ascended rose from the dead monster. He didn't utter a word as it moved closer and slowly took shape. He didn't know her, but he was almost sure it was the woman. "Thank you." she said. And then she was gone and Daniel numbly stared at the ceiling, wishing he could pass out.

Then again, he was pretty sure he shouldn't do that and as he heard his name being called out, he was sure sleep will evade him. 

“I’m in here…” he said, not bothering to raise his voice. They’ll find him.


End file.
